First this comment on Crafty's previous post: The gunrunning scandal is breaking VERY slowly which could turn it into a political nightmare for the President. You may have nailed something BIG here. For whatever his motives were, by arming criminals entering Mexico they were showing zero respect for the safety of the Mexican people and zero respect for the sovereignty of the Mexican nation. Meanwhile, amnesty cuts through politics about like gay marriage. They say what a key interest group wants to hear while giving them roughly the same policy of their opponents. Why wasn't it amnesty/comprehensive reform instead of healthcare when Dems controlled all branches of government? Just more disrespect, if that is what the people really wanted. Then up come minor executive orders at the press office just in time for an election while stonewalling congress over the arming the wrong side of a civil war out the back door of the White House. When the pandering wears off Hispanics will be left to vote based on same issues that the rest of us face, like jobs and growth.-----------------------

Cain's tax plan is very, very good in so many ways, however you do not give the powerful bureacracy within the swinging pendulum of politics a new federal tax to escalate without ending the old ones. WSJ has fallen a month and a half behind on their reading of the forum, but I expressed these same objections right away when it came out: http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2112.msg53361#msg53361

"Better to reform the devil we know—the income tax—than to introduce another devil and end up with ever-rising rates of both."

Cain's Tax MutinyCreating a new national sales tax on top of the income tax is a political killer.

With Herman Cain's leap in the Presidential polls, the businessman's campaign is suddenly being taken seriously and his plan to overhaul federal taxes is coming under scrutiny. Mr. Cain's 9-9-9 plan would certainly help the economy, but its political flaws may well be fatal.

The plan is nothing if not bold, throwing out the current tax code and replacing it with three new taxes: a 9% flat rate personal income tax with no deductions except for donations to charity; a 9% flat rate tax on net business profits; and a new 9% national sales tax.

The plan abolishes the current payroll and estate taxes, as well as those on capital gains and dividends. All capital expenses of businesses would be expensed in the year of purchase and foreign profits could be repatriated without a tax penalty. The plan is designed to raise as much revenue as the current tax code, and the Heritage Foundation estimates it would not increase the budget deficit.

The plan's chief virtue is its sharp reduction in marginal tax rates, to 9% from 35% for businesses and top-earning individuals. Another benefit is that it would eliminate the current double taxation on savings and investment. When this is combined with expensing of capital investment and the sales tax on retail sales, Mr. Cain's plan would in effect convert the federal tax system into a de facto consumption tax.

In an instant, the U.S. would have the lowest corporate tax rate among our major trading partners, from the second highest today. All of this would provide a significant boost to U.S. domestic investment and global business competitiveness. If Americans want more jobs, this plan would produce them in a hurry.

The simplicity of 9-9-9 is also a selling point, as is its elimination of loopholes. Businesses, for example, would deduct all of their legitimate business expenses (except wages paid) from their gross receipts. The provisions that have allowed companies like General Electric to pay little or no federal income tax would be gone.

The main beneficiaries of the current tax code are already howling in protest, notably the housing lobby. But this is not a reason to oppose the plan. The U.S. economy has over-invested in housing thanks to tax and other subsidies. Any tax reform worth its name will have to reduce this favoritism that robs scarce capital from the rest of the economy.

With a low 9% tax rate, deductions like the one for mortgage interest become much less attractive in any case. The key to an immediate housing recovery is to let prices find a bottom, while the key to a durable housing industry is a growing economy that lifts personal incomes. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan cut the after-tax value of the home mortgage deduction by more than half—by cutting the tax rate to 28% from 70%—but home sales and values surged.

The real political defect of the Cain plan is that it imposes a new national sales tax while maintaining the income tax. Mr. Cain's rates are seductively low, but the current income tax was introduced in 1913 with a top rate of 7% amid promises that it would never exceed 10%. By 1918 the top rate was 77%.

European nations began adopting national sales and value-added taxes on top of their income taxes in the 1960s, and that has coincided with the rise of the entitlement state and slower economic growth. Consumption tax rates usually started at less than 10%, but in much of euroland "the rates have nearly doubled and now are close to 20%," according to a study by the Cato Institute's Dan Mitchell. Because a sales tax would raise huge sums with small increases in the rate, we would see regular campaigns like "a penny to fight poverty," or "one-cent for universal health care" that would be politically tough to defeat.

The politics of a national sales tax is bad enough on its own. A 9% rate when combined with state and local levies would mean a tax on goods of 17% or more in many places. The cries for exemptions would be great. The experience of the so-called Fair Tax that would impose a 23% national tax rate isn't favorable, as even Jim South Carolina's DeMint learned when he nearly lost his first bid for the Senate after Democrats attacked the sales tax.

Mr. Cain's campaign argues that the after-tax price of, say, potato chips or a new TV will be no higher even after the 9% tax because current prices have current taxes embedded in them. "We rip out the bad taxes (lowering prices) then put the sales tax back in," writes Rich Lowrie, a top economic adviser to the Cain campaign in an email. "It is not an add on tax. It is a replacement tax." That is right economically, but it's a hard political sell to a family that sees the tax on its grocery bill.

Part of Mr. Cain's appeal is his willingness to challenge political convention, and he certainly has with his tax proposal. Voters like that he isn't a lifetime politician but a successful business owner who has met a payroll and created jobs. But his endorsement of a sales tax on top of the income tax is a political gamble that would eventually finance an even larger entitlement state. Better to reform the devil we know—the income tax—than to introduce another devil and end up with ever-rising rates of both.

"Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has tapped a former Blackwater executive for his foreign policy and national security advisory team.

From 2005 to 2009, Cofer Black was vice chairman of Blackwater, the security and training company now known as Xe Services, which operates a 7,000-acre training complex in Moyock, N.C. Black is now a vice president at Blackbird Technologies, a military contractor based in Northern Virginia.

Before joining Blackwater, Black spent 30 years in the CIA and the State Department. He was the CIA’s director of counterterrorism at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

He is one of 22 “special advisers” on the team unveiled by the Romney campaign Thursday. Also on the list are former Navy Secretary John Lehman and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

“America and our allies are facing a series of complex threats. To shape them before they explode into conflict, our foreign policy will have to be guided by a strategy of American strength,” Romney said in a statement. “I am deeply honored to have the counsel of this extraordinary group of diplomats, experts, and statesmen.”"

"Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has tapped a former Blackwater executive for his foreign policy and national security advisory team.

From 2005 to 2009, Cofer Black was vice chairman of Blackwater, the security and training company now known as Xe Services, which operates a 7,000-acre training complex in Moyock, N.C. Black is now a vice president at Blackbird Technologies, a military contractor based in Northern Virginia.

Before joining Blackwater, Black spent 30 years in the CIA and the State Department. He was the CIA’s director of counterterrorism at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

He is one of 22 “special advisers” on the team unveiled by the Romney campaign Thursday. Also on the list are former Navy Secretary John Lehman and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

“America and our allies are facing a series of complex threats. To shape them before they explode into conflict, our foreign policy will have to be guided by a strategy of American strength,” Romney said in a statement. “I am deeply honored to have the counsel of this extraordinary group of diplomats, experts, and statesmen.”"

Romney was confident and poised with no gaffes, people say. Herman Cain is now the main conservative challenger. They both still have the same strengths and weaknesses that they started with. Perry didn't change the perception that he isn't a great debater considering his strong credentials and isn't ready with his economic plan. But, this was the economic debate. Bachmann made a valid point to Cain's third 9 but mixes in a falsehood (it's not a jobs plan) and ends with a flippant remark. Ron Paul took to the attack against Greenspan, but Cain had referred to Greeenspan's policies of the early 90's not the loose money policies of post-911.

Romney I think will win and unless Cain or someone else comes out of the gate winning primaries, it is over. The candidates should present their own positive agenda and run against Obama-Pelosi-Reid governance, not get further invested into taking down each other.

Those of us to the right of Romney can favor Cain or whoever we want while they are still in, but to really make a difference going forward conservatives IMO can start moving the effort over to the house and senate where these reforms will be written.

One of the characteristics of Obama in his class-warfare approach has been to talk about going after people who made over $250,000 a year and divide us. And I was a little surprised—I think it's about page 47 of your plan—that you have a capital-gains tax cut for people under $200,000, which is actually lower than the Obama model. Now, as a businessman, you know that you actually lose economic effectiveness if you limit capital gains tax cuts only to people who don't get capital gains. So I'm curious: What was the rationale for setting an even lower base marker than Obama had?

Romney answered:

The reason for giving a tax break to middle-income Americans is that middle-income Americans have been the people who have been most hurt by the Obama economy. … Median income in America has declined by 10 percent during the Obama years. People are having a hard time making ends meet. And so if I'm going to use precious dollars to reduce taxes, I want to focus on where the people are hurting the most, and that's the middle class. I'm not worried about rich people. They are doing just fine. The very poor have a safety net, they're taken care of. But the people in the middle, the hard-working Americans, are the people who need a break, and that is why I focused my tax cut right there.

If I'm going to use precious dollars to reduce taxes, I want to focus on where the people are hurting the most. That’s Romney’s most revealing statement of the night. A property-oriented conservative would say that dollars belong to the people who earned them and that tax cuts should let them keep more of their money. But Romney’s formulation—“ use precious dollars to reduce taxes”—assumes that the dollars are his to “focus,” i.e. distribute, according to need. Again, it’s a defensible worldview. But it’s fundamentally liberal.

The reason is simple: Romney is not a conservative. He's not, folks. You can argue with me all day long on that, but he isn't. What he has going for him is that he's not Obama and that he is doing incredibly well in the debates because he's done it a long time. He's very seasoned. He never makes a mistake, and he's going to keep winning these things if he never makes a mistake. It's that simple. But I'm not personally ready to settle on anybody yet -- and I know that neither are most of you, and I also know that most of you do not want this over now, before we've even had a single primary! All we've had are straw votes. You know that the Republican establishment's trying to nail this down and end it. You know that that's happening, and I know that you don't want that to happen, and neither do I.

Now, as for Romney -- and you should know, by the way, that I've met Romney. I've not played golf with him but I've met him, and I like all of these people. This isn't personal, not with what country faces and so forth. I like him very much. I've spent some social time with him. He's a fine guy. He's very nice gentleman. He is a gentleman. But he's not a conservative -- and if you disagree, I'm open. The telephone lines are yours. Call and tell me what you think it is that makes him a principled conservative, what exactly is it. Is there something that he has said that shows conservative, principled leadership? What did he say? I'm open to it. Now, we're told that governors are better than legislators when looking for presidents for a host of reasons.

Legislators are filled with ego, they sit around and by "yes" men, they're not executives, and they're one of many, and the buck never really stops with them. Governors, it's just the exact opposite. But when we look at the record, and we bring up Romneycare, we're told, "Well, that's been he was a governor, but as president he wouldn't do any such thing." What? What do you mean he wouldn't do any such thing? He did it is the point. He has positions as governor that make it obvious he believes in the concept of manmade global warming. "Yeah, but that was as governor, Rush. It's a liberal state. He had to do things to get elected." Um, there's gonna be a lot of liberal pressure on whoever our president is: Media, Democrat members of Congress that the media's gonna fawn all over.

Every night you'll have Harry Reid and Pelosi on camera commenting on what the new conservative president's doing. There's gonna be all kinds of liberal pressure on whoever our next president is who's a Republican conservative. The Romneycare health care bill has individual mandates, and they're wrong. Individual mandates are wrong whether they're imposed by a governor or a president. Governor McDonnell of Virginia has not done what Romney did in Massachusetts, and neither have most other Republican governors. Governor McDonnell of Virginia is running a very small deficits, but surplus, in fact, I think. His unemployment rate in Virginia is way down. Nobody talks about him for the presidency, because he himself has not put himself out there for it.

But most Republican governors are not having to fall back on the federalism argument to justify what they did. "Well, it's states' rights. You know, we're laboratories. We can do whatever we want to do. I wouldn't do it, of course, at the federal level! I wouldn't do it. But, of course, the governors we gotta experiment with things," and the reason that they're not falling back on federalism is because, as governors, they didn't make terrible policy decisions that they now have to justify. So if we are going to look at a governor's record, what exactly do we find? There's manmade global warming, and Romney has indicated that he believes in it and he has supported laws in Massachusetts built on it. The EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, in the federal government is out of control.

A WSJ poll, taken before the debate the other night, now has Cain at 27% to Romney's 23%.

I like Cain a lot, but I do note that I did not care at all for his laudatory comments on Alan Greenspan, and his almost benign view of the Fed (e.g. IIRC audits not necessary). Still, I like him a lot.====================================Henninger on Romney:

Watching Rick Perry in the Republican debate at Dartmouth say that the answer to every aspect of economic revival is to "get our energy industry back to work," and watching Herman Cain say that the answer to virtually anything is "my 9-9-9 plan," one's thoughts of course turned to John Belushi's immortal Greek diner owner, Pete Dionasopolis, who defined his world in three words: "Cheeseburger! Cheeseburger! Cheeseburger!"

Perhaps destiny brought these GOP candidates to Dartmouth. After the debate, Gov. Perry attended a Dartmouth frat party. A Dartmouth fraternity was of course the inspiration for "Animal House," an apt metaphor for the GOP nomination process.

Newt Gingrich's variation on cheeseburger is to repeatedly attack Ben Bernanke. This is slightly weird, but the former House Speaker apparently has decided that if he talks too much about Washington, he'll be fingered as one of them. So his strategy is attacking the Fed.

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Polling in the low 20s, Mr. Romney gives new meaning to front-runner. .Incredible to behold, the Federal Reserve offered the evening's one, genuine comic highlight. After Julianna Goldman elicited from Herman Cain his view that the best Fed chairman in the past 40 years was Alan Greenspan, all the synapses in Ron Paul's brain fired in a straight line to assert: "Alan Greenspan was a disaster! Everybody in Washington—liberals and conservatives—said he kept interest rates too low, too long . . . and ushered in the biggest [housing] bubble."

We all know the meaning of the saying, It isn't over until the fat lady sings. A few hours before the Dartmouth debate, Chris Christie endorsed Mitt Romney. Gov. Christie's sudden and awkwardly timed endorsement may only reflect his belief that the process is over, we have a candidate and it's time to get on with the campaign to defeat Barack Obama.

We see his point, but what's the rush? The election is 13 months away. No voters in any primary have had a chance to provide a verdict on the candidates more real than these hapless debates or another opinion poll.

By this early, imperfect measure, Mitt Romney's status is weak. Despite running against this field, he never rises above 25% in GOP preferences. At best, Mr. Romney is running as the party's Unsinkable Molly Brown.

A week ago, Mr. Christie seemed to understand that the reason so many wanted him to run wasn't merely dissatisfaction with Mr. Romney. It had to do as well with the clear sense that the 2012 election is historic, a moment for the American people to choose decisively between Barack Obama's Americanized version of a flatlined European social democracy or the steady upward path of the nation's past two centuries.

The enthusiasm flowing to Mr. Christie came from the same people who had hoped to see Congressman Paul Ryan in the race, or Mitch Daniels or Jeb Bush. All of them made clear they understood we had arrived at a big moment for the nation. Mr. Romney, by contrast, leaves the impression that the country has arrived at his big moment.

Before any primary vote, Mr. Christie and others are falling in behind a former Massachusetts governor whose message is both very good and very bad. It would help the Romney candidacy a lot—or a Romney presidency—if he were under more pressure now from his peers in the party.

Mr. Romney was at his best in the debate when pressed to bow to the conventional Beltway wisdom that any deficit compromise demands tax increases. He ran his questioner through total government spending's rising share of the economy, heading toward 40%, and said merely matching revenue to that share would mean "we cease at some point to be a free economy."

Related Video This candidate will have to be pushed a lot harder to make him a good president...That's true and well said. But Mr. Romney also said: "You have to stand by your principles." Doubts about that statement are the main reason Mr. Romney, in the current RealClearPolitics average, is polling at 21.7%, a level that gives new meaning to front-runner.

The health-care problem has been widely discussed. There are two other troubling policy areas, both on display in the debate: taxes and China.

Mr. Romney's standard reply is that the "rich can take care of themselves" and he's all about "the middle class." But that's Barack Obama's divisive view. And despite two bipartisan commissions explicitly calling for lower individual rates, Mr. Romney's tax reforms are "in the future." So he sits below 22% support.

China is hacking into the Pentagon's computers, grabbing the South China Sea, offering little help on nuclear proliferation, and Mr. Romney's big proposal is "on day one" to file a complaint against China with the World Trade Organization for currency manipulation. But that's proto-Democrat Chuck Schumer's issue. If one can glean a commonality in the Schumer-Romney complaint, it would be campaign contributions.

Mitt Romney has undoubted gifts. He could be president. But in the current Obama morass, so could 100 other people. What voters, including Republican voters, want for the United States now is the best president possible. Mr. Romney isn't there yet. Only more competition or criticism will get him there.

This question goes not to the Republican Party, where "establishment" candidates like Mitt Romney privately dismiss Cain as lacking the experience, gravitas and resources to beat President Barack Obama and then to soundly govern the country.

Herman Cain is not going to be the GOP nominee.

Without a serious star-power staff, a ground game, chits to be called in by the candidate or the candidate's influential network of friends of influence, the "fat cats" sit on their checkbooks until and unless they believe their horse can win. A serious presidential candidate is not one who, like Cain, breaks from campaigning for a book tour timed to coincide with his unlikely quest for the White House.

No, Cain is a clear and present danger to the Democratic Party -- and their invaluable near-monolithic black vote. Cain says things like: "African-Americans have been brainwashed" into voting for the Democratic Party; "If you (Wall Street protestors) don't have a job or you're not rich, blame yourself"; "People sometimes hold themselves back because they want to use racism as an excuse for them not being able to achieve what they want to achieve"; and "I don't believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way."

But Cain threatens to change the race-card game in ways that even those who voted against Barack Obama hoped he would do: Put the stake through the heart of the nonsense that white racism still holds people back. Instead, Obama sides with a black Harvard professor who badly mistreats a white Cambridge cop who was just doing his job. Obama tells an author that racism fuels the opposition to ObamaCare. Obama says nothing when comrades ranging from former President Jimmy Carter to Jesse Jackson Jr. to Morgan Freeman defend Obama by blaming racism.

Now comes Cain.

He calls his economic program 9-9-9. But Cain's real number is 95. That is the percentage of the black vote captured in 2008 by Obama. What if someway, somehow, the Republicans captured over 35 percent of black presidential vote, as the GOP did as recently as 1956?

Cain asks this question: Why do blacks, in 2011, vote Democratic? Answer: because a) they falsely believe racism remains a serious threat and b) that Republicans are bad people who wish them ill. Neither of which, says Cain, is true. Blacks are more anti-abortion, more pro-traditional marriage and more pro-vouchers for inner-city parents than the typical non-black Democrat. A bad economy, made worse by Obama's tax-spend-regulate, welfare-state mentality, means blacks suffer disproportionately.

This argument makes Cain a walking refutation to the black victicrat "leaders" who speak about the "plight" of the "black underclass," and who attribute legitimate policy differences to "racism."

Cain represents a hardworking, up-from-the-bootstraps, financially successful, plainspoken Republican Southern black man who believes America in 2011 and America in 1960 are two different worlds. Worse for the grievance crowd, Cain calls out the Democratic Party for fostering a victicrat mentality and creating a sense of entitlement.

Cain's straight talk makes him stand out in debates. He is now close to cracking the "top tier" of candidates. Clearly, lots of people have begun to listen. What if blacks start listening?

Cain believes what former slave Booker T. Washington wrote a mere 35 years after slavery ended: "When a Negro girl learns to cook, to wash dishes, to sew, to write a book, or a Negro boy learns to groom horses, or to grow sweet potatoes, or to produce butter, or to build a house, or to be able to practise medicine, as well or better than some one else, they will be rewarded regardless of race or colour. In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not long keep the world from what it wants.

"I think that the whole future of my race hinges on the question as to whether or not it can make itself of such indispensable value that the people in the town and the state where we reside will feel that our presence is necessary to the happiness and well-being of the community. No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual, and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is long left without proper reward. This is a great human law which cannot be permanently nullified."

Or, as Cain puts it, "I left the Democrat plantation a long time ago."

Watch Clinton's expression as he gets his lunch handed to him by a questioning restaurant proprietor. Rhodes scholar young Bill Clinton does some pretty fast math on his feet - impressive to his audience, but wrong. Readers of these pages would already know that Cain has a degree in mathematics and didn't pose his question to the President without doing his homework. At the end, Clinton bails as if time is up and says send me your calculations. Cain did that and never received a reply from the President or anyone in his administration.

One of the bonehead statements of the Rhodes scholar that never worked in the private sector is that mandatory healthcare would only add 2% of additional cost (actually 7%) to a business with 10,000 employees that returns 1 1/2% to the bottom line. No return or a negative return on sales means no expansion, no hiring, really no reason to be in business.

Another thing clear from the video is that Cain is no affirmative action, racially picked figurehead. He is clearly the leader of the operation, out front and center in public advancing the interests of the business. Besides CEO of a 500 restaurant company, he was also head of the national restaurant association.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy542UgSelQ Intro ends at about 1:10.-------When he gave the Greenspan example for Fed management he made it very clear he was referring only to the years in the early 1990s when he served as Chairman of the Kansas City Fed. It was a trick question because there was no good example in our adult lifetime of a Fed chair who would serve as a model for a great appointment. In the last several decades we had Arthur Burns and the inflationary spiral of the 1970's. We had inflation and then tight money that was poorly timed under Volcker and caused a very deep recession and later became an Obama adviser, now AWOL. We had the bizarre record of Greenspan who barely spoke English and we have the current QEx fanatic who can't remember his mission.

"I love the first two 9's of his 999 - but not the last. At least he has people talking about revamping the tax code."

Absolutely! I don't think there is any question that Cain, who used to support moving 100% to a sales tax, could be moved in negotiations with congress to any serious proposal that tears up the old tax code, taxes income evenly, slashes the rates, and raises just as much money.

For Romney, he will leave the highest rates on the rich (because they fell into it?) and for Perry he will continue the public private partnerships. How can we measure income if we can't even define what is a private business?

People who liked Newt can remember that Cain's one word description was 'brilliant'. Newt will have his best second shot at writing domestic policy in a Cain administration.

Cain has put a lot of thought into 999 and he is marketing it very, very well. It is the centerpiece to his candidacy. How could he be elected on it, but then denied by the Congress. Reagan's rate cuts were too radical , , , until he was elected in a landslide and intimidated the Dems into compromising into some far more radical than the chattering class ever imagined was possible.

The question now for Herman Cain, certainly the most charming Republican presidential contender since Ronald Reagan, is whether he’s a formidable candidate in his own right -- or just the latest of the Not-Romneys.

The structure of the GOP race this year has been simple. There’s Mitt Romney and his solid 20-25 percent of the Republican electorate, the level of support the former Massachusetts governor has garnered in nearly every major poll this year.

And then there’s the other 75 percent. They know Romney. They’ve been listening to him for nearly five years. And they’re not buying.

There are three possible explanations for this.

They dislike his stands on policy. How can Republicans nominate a man who imposed an individual health-care mandate on the state of Massachusetts to lead a party whose primary policy goal since 2010 has been the repeal of ObamaCare -- designed around an individual health-care mandate?

They can’t make an emotional connection with him. Romney is a Scotchgarded candidate -- all attempts to penetrate the shiny surface are repelled. This is why there is political value to his rivals when someone brings up his Mormonism, and not just to make evangelicals uncomfortable with him. Because LDS is a minority faith, Romney’s membership in the church only emphasizes his otherness and distance.

The GOP base’s difficulty in finding a commonality with Romney is related to their unease with his policy history. Romney does not have a natural affinity with the GOP faithful. Or, as Rush Limbaugh put it simply yesterday, “Romney is not a conservative. He’s not, folks.”

Romney has sought to calm these concerns simply by changing some of his positions. He was pro-choice; now he’s pro-life. He was a supporter of some vague form of gay marriage; now he promises to oppose it. Which leads to point 3:

GOP voters think Romney is a phony. Combine the above two and you get this one.

Authenticity is always an issue for primary voters, as it should be. They are the most committed people in politics, and they believe deeply in the power of the political system to do good (even if, in the Republican case, the good to be done is to dismantle the political system in part). An inauthentic candidate is exactly the kind of politician true believers fear the most.

Romney can’t really do anything about these problems -- except perhaps find a way to remove the Scotchgard. And because of them, the GOP race all year has been a contest between Romney and the Not-Romneys.

First up was Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, who said explicitly that he was in the race to provide a more conservative mainstream alternative to Romney.

He went nowhere because, as it turned out, the 75 percent didn’t want to choose between Romney and a better version of Romney. They wanted a Not-Romney, a candidate of conservative principle, and three have surfaced.

Michele Bachmann surged after two debate performances in which she positioned herself as unwilling and indeed emotionally incapable of compromise. But her entire candidacy was and is negative -- you know what she won’t do and what she doesn’t like, but you know nothing else.

Her Not-Romney position was obliterated by the arrival of the man who, on paper, was the perfect Not-Romney: Rick Perry. A hard-line conservative, he could also boast of governing credentials and had a simple positive message: I can get the country back to work the way people are working in Texas.

Perry has done nothing but shoot himself in the foot he’s had lodged in his mouth for six weeks. So now comes Herman Cain.

Now this is a Not-Romney -- an African-American evangelical preacher and former businessman with an entrancing personality and a genuine sense of the size and drama of the present moment.

Cain speaks plainly, whereas Romney speaks like the guy in a radio commercial reading off the fine print of a lottery. Romney has a 59-point plan to save the economy? Cain has a one-point plan, the already-iconic 9-9-9.

This is Cain’s Not-Romney moment. Some polls have him ahead of Romney now. Every conventional understanding of politics says he can’t win; 9-9-9 is fun to describe but difficult to defend substantively; Cain has an unfortunate history of saying unfortunate things. And he has no elective experience.

And he has one more problem: Romney. Because while everybody was looking for an alternative to him, Romney has used his time on the trail to turn himself into a dazzling candidate. Even the 75 percent won’t remain immune forever to just how fluent, how precise and how serious he is about running and winning.

All he needs is for this one last Not-Romney to fade as the others did. Will he?

Herman Cain has surged in the Republican presidential contest with his plan to overhaul taxation. It was an equally contentious issue—health care—that put him on the political map in the first place 17 years ago.

Herman Cain has surged to national attention by pitching a tax overhaul. But it was an entirely different issue, health care, which propelled him onto the national political stage. Janet Adamy has details on The News Hub..In 1994, the Godfather's Pizza chief executive debated with President Bill Clinton at a town-hall meeting over whether the president's proposed health-care legislation would cripple his restaurant enterprise. The chain offered insurance to 17% of its workers, and the Clinton bill would have required Godfather's to include nearly every worker, including part-timers.

"If I'm forced to do this, what will I tell those people whose jobs I will have to eliminate?" a stern-faced Mr. Cain asked Mr. Clinton via satellite.

The exchange, combined with Mr. Cain's health-care offering at Godfather's Pizza, offer an indication of Mr. Cain's stance on a pressing national matter. With his campaign for political office now on the upswing, Mr Cain is working to fill out his plans for the country's health system—most recently by tapping former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop as an adviser on health matters.

At Godfather's, Mr. Cain's health-care plan was in line with the rest of the restaurant industry, which offers relatively skimpy insurance coverage. He fought to prevent government from requiring him to insure more people, and made holding down costs a key part of his corporate strategy.

As a candidate, Mr. Cain's current stated positions borrow largely from congressional Republican leaders and deviate little from his GOP presidential opponents. If elected, he pledges to repeal President Barack Obama's 2010 health overhaul law, which he has dubbed "health care deform." He supports transitioning Medicare to a system where seniors get subsidies to buy private insurance plans, and turning Medicaid into a state-run program using blocks of federal funding. Both ideas were passed by the GOP-controlled House.

Mr. Cain wants to expand the tax break that companies get for providing insurance to workers to include Americans who buy policies on their own. He calls for loosening restrictions on health savings accounts. To curb medical malpractice lawsuits, he suggests making losers pick up the tab.

"It was the managers, assistant managers, and if you were some type of supervisor. But if you were a counter person...most of those people only worked about 20 hours a week," which meant they didn't qualify, said Spencer Wiggins, a former Godfather's Pizza human-resources executive.

Jolene Jefferies, a former secretary for Mr. Cain, said health benefits became less generous after he took the helm because Godfather's no longer was owned by Pillsbury, which had deeper pockets and more negotiating power than a smaller company. "I remember the plans being very good," she says.

Mr. Cain's staff declined to make him, or a policy official, available for comment.

Of the chain's 3,418 workers at corporate-owned operations, 593 were eligible for Godfather's health-insurance plan, and 409 enrolled, according to figures Mr. Cain provided in 1994. The company paid 75% of the cost of the plan and workers picked up the remaining 25%. Providing insurance cost the company $500,000 in 1994, and accounted for 2.5% of the company's payroll, Mr. Cain said at the time.

Mr. Clinton called for employers to expand insurance to part-time workers, which Mr. Cain estimated would increase his company's health-care costs to $2.2 million a year. In the televised exchange, Mr. Clinton disputed Mr. Cain's math, and asked why the company and its competitors couldn't increase the cost of pizza to cover it.

Mr. Cain responded by disputing Mr. Clinton's math, and said larger competitors would have an advantage in absorbing the cost.

Within hours, the phones at Godfather's headquarters were lighting up with calls, said one former executive. Former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp flew in for a meeting, Mr. Cain told the National Review, and tapped him to sit on a tax commission. Political pundits cited Mr. Cain's star turn as a seminal moment in the collapse of Mr. Clinton's health plan.

"Cain became a folk hero overnight after his engagement with President Clinton," said Scott Reed, a Republican consultant who ran Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. With Mr. Kemp as the running mate, the campaign invited Mr. Cain to fly on the campaign trail plane, where he served as "a good strong, calming influence and helped Jack stay focused," Mr. Reed said.

More recently, Mr. Cain, a survivor of colon and liver cancer, has favored bolder statements about the country's health system. At a GOP presidential debate in Orlando last month, Mr. Cain asserted, "I would be dead on 'Obamacare,'" because the law would have delayed the treatments he received in 2006.

Fact checkers called the statement false, and proponents of the health overhaul said he crossed a line. "For him to use that story to suggest that the outcome would have been different under the new health reform law is extraordinarily cynical and manipulative," said Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now, a liberal advocacy group.

GM wrote: "At least Cain is willing to think outside the box on this topic."

Absolutely! Cain put himself on the map with his plan and sparked the interest of both the flat and Fair tax people that unfortunately are two competing minorities of the electorate. I read through Romney's 59 point plan and can't remember any of it. I did not find the top marginal rate in there - because it isn't in there. Hardly a commitment to lower rates, economic growth and smaller government.

Cain is the only one calling for the complete scrapping of the current tax code. Many are finding agreement with the first two nines and but distrusting the third - the enactment of a large new federal tax. The door is wide open for candidate Rick Perry to also scrap the code with a different plan. Gov. Perry, if you are reading this, debates won't be so scary after you have a plan. I will be happy to outline one for you.

Agree, but with 15 million in the bank he isn't going to go away anytime soon. Like Newt, he can still add something to the discussion if he chooses to step up to the plate.----I watched Cain on Meet the Press today. Must say again what a pompous and partisan jerk David Gregory is. Cain was poised and focused, answered every question very well, never distracted by the outrageous opposing opinions expressed in the question that poses as journalism. Cain was ready on every objection. Cain makes the Reagan case on foreign policy, peace through strength, wouldn't let Gregory go anywhere with neocon labeling and didn't get drawn into specifics on action against Iran. When all he has for intelligence and IF this was an act of war, then he would have his advisers present him with "all our options".

Gregory: For starters, about 30 million of the poorest households pay neither income taxes nor Social Security or Medicare levies. `So for them,'" he says, "`doing away with the payroll tax doesn't save anything. And you are adding both a 9 percent sales tax and 9 percent income tax. So we know they will be worse off.'" That's the reality, Mr. Cain

After being completely refuted by Cain, Gregory says: "The other defect in the plan..."

Gregory just can't get it that state and Federal are DIFFERENT. No matter what you do with federal, you have state taxes to deal with. His plan has nothing to do with that.

Cain did not back off of strong statement made in speeches, Cain clip: 'liberals seek to destroy this country', Gregory: "How so?" Cain: "economically". They don't want America to be strong.

Herman Cain's rise in the polls has breathed life into his shoestring campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. But less than three months from the first primary, being a Cain supporter in New Hampshire isn't easy.

Herman Cain, shown on Sunday, is hiring staff at a breakneck pace.

Londonderry resident William Coyne decided to throw his support to Mr. Cain last week. It took him most of a day to track down a batch of Cain bumper stickers, which he finally did—in Scranton, Pa. "I'm told they will arrive in the mail in a few days," Mr. Coyne said.

Mr. Cain, the hymn-singing, former restaurant executive turned GOP front-runner, is riding a wave of interest and support unmatched by any Republican so far this election. From single digits two months ago, he shot to the top of last week's Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, drawing support from 27% of Republican primary voters, four points above former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Now, under increasing scrutiny, he needs to hone his message, rapidly build a campaign organization to capture the swell and, perhaps most importantly in the eyes of national GOP operatives, give himself over to the discipline of national campaign.

"Cain has a very big mountain to climb organizationally," said Christian Ferry, who helped manage Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. "His success will depend on how well he survives the next few weeks."

Cain aides say they are hiring campaign staff at a breakneck pace, looking to nearly double the payroll to about 60 by the end of the month. They opened a South Carolina headquarters 10 days ago and are bulking up operations in Iowa and New Hampshire, where Mr. Cain has shot up in the polls.

His campaign pulled in $2 million in the first two weeks of October, compared with $2.8 million for the entire third quarter of the year. His two top rivals, Mr. Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, have almost 10 times as much cash on hand.

Still, Mr. Cain is drawing crowds in a way that neither Messrs. Romney nor Perry can match. About 15,000 people turned out to see him speak at six events on a two-day swing through his native state of Tennessee, including nearly 2,000 people to a huge barn in the small town of Waverly on Saturday. He ended his appearance there by belting out the hymn, "He Looked Beyond My Faults."

But Tennessee won't have a primary until March, and many Republicans question whether Mr. Cain is sufficiently focused on the key early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to build durable-enough support there to compete for the nomination.

Top aides dismiss the criticism, saying the Atlanta-area resident is running a nationwide campaign to woo delegates and grass-roots groups in states of all sizes, from North Dakota to Florida, much how Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2008.

"The best way to explain what we are doing is to read 'The Audacity to Win,' " said Cain campaign manager Mark Block, referring to the book Mr. Obama's top campaign adviser, David Plouffe, wrote describing the lessons of the 2008 victory.

This week, Mr. Cain plans to juggle a mix of campaign and fund-raising events in five states, including his first swing through Iowa since August. He will deliver his first full-scale policy address Friday in Detroit, laying out the details of a proposal to create tax-deduction "empowerment zones" to spur hiring in the inner cities.

The former Godfather's Pizza CEO appears to be formulating many of his positions on the fly, a tendency that carries high risks this late in a primary campaign. In Tennessee over the weekend, he told supporters that he favored building a 20-foot-high electrified fence along the entire stretch of the U.S.-Mexican border, complete with a sign saying, "It will kill you."

Asked Sunday about the fence on NBC's "Meet the Press," Mr. Cain dismissed his comments as a joke. "That's not a serious plan," he said.

Others predict that Mr. Cain's support could begin to ebb as voters learn more about his signature "9-9-9" tax plan, which would replace the current tax code with a 9% national sales tax, a 9% income tax and a 9% corporate tax.

One of Mr. Cain's rivals for the nomination, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, predicted his tax plan wouldn't fly in Iowa and New Hampshire, especially given that the latter currently has no state sales tax. "As people look at 9-9-9 and disaggregate it, it gets to be a lot harder sell, I think," Mr. Gingrich said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

There is no primary opponent so the rule is no victim, no crime? See if the sound bites this week coming from the President bus tour through states like North Carolina and Virginia that Obama carried in 2008 and needs in 2012 sound like campaigning or governing. Leave the campaign war chest in the bank. This tour is free!

WSJ: Obama to Target a Few Crucial States

The president starts a three-day bus trip Monday through North Carolina and Virginia that brings fresh attention to the kinds of voters he will rely on as he works to assemble a majority next year in the Electoral College.

A) These debates are a very good thing. ALL the candidates are getting better and better.

B) It wasn't until the commentary at the end of the debate had begun that I realized that Huntsman wasn't there

C) Rick Santorum: Caught my attention for his articulateness on the War with Islamic Fascism back when he lost his Senate seat in PA. Indeed, I think I posted here on this forum his final speech in the Senate. When he first entered the race I rolled my eyes though. That said, he has been a worthy contributor to the conversation of the debates.

D) I love Herman Cain, but was very disappointed last night with his response to the question on negotiating with terrorists (he could see himself releasing Guantanamo prisoners for a hostage's return ). Other than that though, he continues to impress. 999 was under some serious pressure last night, but he stayed calm and focused, even with direct personal pressure by Romney. Romney's attack was unsound, though for many he may have gotten away with it. Several candidates made a point of showing respect for Herman though and what he has brought to the conversation.

E) Perry had some moments where he did decently, but definitely got spanked and put in his place in the alpha male battle between Romney and him when Perry kept interrupting Romney astutely put the spotlight on it. Boo/hiss to moderator Anderson Cooper for allowing Perry's interruptions to get out of hand-- but maybe that served AC's purposes. VERY weak, and VERY poor judgment for Perry to try dinging Mitt with the "his gardener hired illegals" thing- Mitt swatted it away and left Perry looking small and petty.

F) Good night for Newt. His comment towards the end about seven three hour debates head to head (a la Lincoln-Douglas) may have been a bit heady for the masses, but it certainly did underline for me that IMHO Newt would be very, very formidable in such a format against Baraq. I confess I gave anaother $25 to Newt this morning to encourage him to stay in the race. I like the way he changes the conversation in the debates when he speaks.

G) Bachman had a moment where she was really connecting with the women in the audinece when talking about foreclosures, even though when the dust cleared she promised no goodies (and good for her!). Still, she hasn't a prayer.

H) Romney keeps getting stronger and stronger. He is becoming a much better candidate due to the experience of these debates.

I) I like that one more often hears ""What X just siad is a good point" or similar positive things. I think Newt's reminders tabout how any of them are better than Baraq has helped steer things in a better direction and away from the Pawlenty-Bachman dynamic that stained the both of them.

Once again, I missed it and don't enjoy trudging through after I have already seen clips and commentary. THE clip that made news was about hiring of an illegal, not exactly new or the key to beating Obama or turning the country around. Too bad to give the public a food fight instead of a economics lesson.

Cain now says he misspoke, whatever that means regarding making the 1 for a thousand trade out of Guantanamo. Not ready for prime time. Newt was the one to stay on track, they say. Eleven more debates to go through January. Let's get it together!

VDH at NRO:

Debate RoundupOctober 18, 2011 11:04 P.M.By Victor Davis Hanson

I don’t think the debate will change much in the polls, and those without the money are not going to gain some by tonight’s performance. Obama surely gains when the debaters end up shouting at each other and forget about the present mess. Cain took a lot of hits that scored. Here’s a quick take.

Romney: I think he won the weird crossfires with Perry: a) illegal aliens working on his property were hired by contractors, not him personally (most recognize the difference); b) Perry’s ad hominem came off too calculated and studied rather than an ad hoc jousting point. He scored points for being above the fray, and parried all the blows pretty well. Along with Gingrich and Santorum, he seems to have the best command of the facts, and is doing a good job presenting a certain presidential calm. He is often aware that the debate is being watched by independents as well as the base. When he survives these sharp attacks, he gets better — much better than in 2008. The flash of anger at Perry was a sort of Reagan “I’m paying for this” moment.

Gingrich: A person from Mars would conclude that once again Gingrich is the most impressive in debates, especially his efforts to steer the attacks back to Obama’s policies. His above-the-fray lectures come off very well. He should reflect why it is, then, that when he does so well in debates and so often is the best informed, he gets little traction in polls — and then address that paradox.

Bachmann: She is well-informed and comes up with some strange, but welcome, takes on issues that few have thought of — like her quips on foreclosures, illegal immigration, Israel, and 9-9-9. For someone who is supposed to be wacky, Bachmann came across tonight as sensible and often imaginative. Along with Cain, she is the coolest under fire, and the lower she sinks in the polls, the more relaxed and better she is in debate — as if the less pressure, the more natural she appears.

Cain: At some point reiterating “9-9-9” or referring to his website is simply not enough. He is fearless and candid, and that counts for a lot, but without at least some detail he comes off more as a salesman. One would think he at least would make a 20-second pitch that he is trying to encourage more production and investment and discourage consumption, or articulate exactly why the half that doesn’t pay income taxes should pay quite a lot through his federal sales taxes and 9 percent income tax — or to what extent a national sales tax would, in EU style, create (or not) an even bigger underground, off-the-books economy. On too many occasions, he doesn’t answer the particular question asked or obfuscates about his past statements. But again there seems no interest in detail at all. Too many weird things about electric fences and trading captives for terrorists = too little political experience and not enough prep. His chief strength: He remains absolutely unflappable! But we don’t elect presidents on that admirable trait.

Perry: He is not the somnolent Perry of past debates, but his animation is mostly ad hominem and comes off mean-spirited. He seems to have realized that midway, and gets better when he talks about energy. Tonight: two steps forward for passion, two and a half steps back for a bothersome abrasiveness. Passion is not just invective.

Paul: He gets a lot of applause for reducing problems to sheer simplicity. But the more he talks, the more it is clear that he is a neo-isolationist. At this point, I don’t see how getting rid of the Federal Reserve is viable when fiscal discipline in the past was not antithetical to it. Fifteen percent cut to the Defense Department? All those cabinets cut in a year? Abruptly withdraw the troops from South Korea? I guess it is to be “starve the beast”: First, cut the military, and then they can’t go abroad. (No aid to Israel makes it stronger?) He can sound good on the economy, and some cuts in foreign aid, but all in all, he is simply not a serious presidential candidate.

Santorum: His is a more informed, more analytical version of Perry’s personal-attack mode; somehow he pulls it off a little better because he offers detail. He rarely says anything that doesn’t make sense. But he seems visibly exasperated, almost to the point of sputtering, that his rivals don’t reply to his revelations about their purported hypocrisies — but why would they? He needs to adopt a little more of Herman Cain’s sunny disposition and cheer up, since otherwise he seems perennially angry that the debate, like life, is not fair and his talents go unrecognized.

RICK PERRY ACTS LIKE THE NEW NIXONBy DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANNPublished on DickMorris.com on October 19, 2011

Printer-Friendly VersionThe most effective move in electoral politics is to rebut an opponent's charges and show how they are misrepresentations and falsehoods. Media guru Tony Schwartz once said "everyone likes a fighter, but nobody likes a dirty fighter." Negatives have their place in every campaign. But when one of them is an obvious stretch and reach, twisting facts beyond recognition to mislead voters, it can backfire massively, all the more so if it concerns a candidate's personal life. When a negative blows up in the face of the candidate who threw it, voters learn instantly about his character. They don't have to rummage through musty, dusty old voting records to see what he is about, they saw his below-the-belt hit with their own eyes and draw the appropriate conclusions about what manner of man he is.

That's how it was in the recent CNN debate from Nevada when Rick Perry accused Mitt Romney of hiring illegal immigrants at his Massachusetts home. Posturing and preening, Perry denounced Romney's "hypocrisy" in attacking his immigration record while hiring illegals himself. You could have heard the gasps around the country as Perry laid out his negative.

Everyone understood that it was the illegal immigration issue which had laid Perry low, deflating his post-announcement boom, dropping him from first place to fourth or fifth in most polls. Now, in a stroke, Perry was seeking to embarrass the candidate who had the greatest hand in pushing him down - Romney - by painting him with the illegal immigration brush.

Unruffled, Romney, at first, laughed off the charge saying "I have never hired an illegal immigrant in my life," and went on to talk about the underlying issue of of illegal aliens, repeating his charges that Perry's instate tuition scholarships for their children was a "magnet" to attract them. OK, but everybody watching the debate wanted more about what Romney really did. We all wondered if there was any truth to Perry's charge and were not satisfied with Romney's laughing disclaimer.

Then Perry, sensing weakness, honed in on the charge pushing it again. This time, Romney delivered a crushing rebuttal. The illegal immigrants had been gardeners hired by the landscaping company he used to mow his lawn. When he found out they were hiring illegals, he ordered them to replace them with legal workers "I'm running for public office, I can't be hiring illegal immigrants," he says he explained. Then, when the company was found to be continuing to hire illegals, Romney fired the company and hired one more in compliance with the law. Case closed.

But Perry wasn't finished. He hammered Romney again with the charge, even though we now all accepted Mitt's version of what had happened. Rather than rebut or correct any errors in Romney's portrayal of the events, he just repeated the charge as if Romney had not answered it. To make matters worse, he tried to out-shout Romney, horning in on his time. Verbally, it was the same kind of move Al Gore made in the debates of 2000 when he menacingly moved over to Bush's lectern to horn in on his space. Or Rick Lazio tried that same year when he walked over to Hillary's podium in their Senate race to hand her a letter. A debate no no.

The result is that Perry now is being seen as a bully, a smear artist, a con man, and a dirty fighter. Nixon at his worst. He has amplified and compounded the damage he suffered over the illegal immigration issue with this McCarthyite personal attack.

In a larger sense, Perry is like the concert performer who can't get it together to do well in a studio. On stage, surrounded by an adoring public and an energized audience, he beams. He gets his energy from his surroundings. But in a studio or a debate room, amid only competitors and journalists, he can't get any mojo. He doesn't get energy from confrontation and can't make his points stick.

If you can't debate, you can't win the election against Obama and you shouldn't be nominated. Now, after four tries, Perry still can't win a debate. It's time to move on.Subscribe to Dick's Newsletter

After the most recent debate IMO Perry is done for. The smallness revealed, the inarticulateness, the cultural tone deafness (e.g. "niggerhead"-- Jon Stewart riffed wickedly on this and his calling Herman Cain "brother" last night), the lack of preparation on many issues, trying to get ahead by breaking down Romney, instead of Baraq, the apparently moderate IQ , , , , he's done for.

=============Memo to GOP Contenders: Cut the Crap!"If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check." --Thomas Jefferson, 1811

With the most recent GOP presidential primary "debate" just concluded, it's clear that the frontrunner is none other than ... you guessed it, Barack Hussein Obama. The incessant bickering bullpucky and petty assaults among most of the GOP wannabes is undoubtedly a source of great glee for the Obama campaign. That infighting, and the fact that Obama's adoring Leftmedia sycophants are promoting the GOP candidates they believe Obama can most readily defeat, largely account for the GOP candidate poll standings -- and are keeping Obama in the lead.The intraparty rancor among the GOP candidates, both on and off the debate stage, is the direct result of archaic advice from the old-school network of Beltway political and media consultants relying upon their worn-out primary playbooks. Apparently they all missed the "Tea Party" message of the midterm elections beyond the Beltway, which heralded a new breed of conservatives and a new House majority.Of course, it will take more than one election cycle to purge all the establishment Republicans from the House and Senate -- those who still exercise considerable control over Congress. I'm concerned, however, that the Republic may not have enough election cycles remaining to restore Liberty, especially if the Republican presidential hopefuls don't clean up their act. On their current self-destructive course, they'll readily hand re-election to Obama.Does the Leftmedia influence GOP candidate polling?In 1966, Ronald Reagan adopted for primary candidates what his California Republican chairman labeled "The Eleventh Commandment": "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican." Two years earlier, an outstanding conservative, Barry Goldwater, had lost his presidential bid to liberal Democrat Lyndon Johnson only after Goldwater was attacked by East Coast establishment Republicrats like Nelson Rockefeller, who labeled him an "extremist" and declared him unfit for the presidency.Recall that Reagan delivered the defining speech of the modern conservative movement in support of Barry Goldwater in '64, on ground laid by conservatives Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley. Had Goldwater won that campaign, the American political landscape would look very different today. Absent would be Johnson's "Great Society" government programs, which were the model for Obama's advanced breed of Democrat Socialists.In subsequent campaigns, including his two presidential elections, Ronald Reagan abided by that 11th Commandment, unless defending himself, and he set an outstanding course for American renewal. But most of the current crop of GOP contenders is too busy hacking at each other to take a lesson from history. Of course, it took an individual of Reagan's character and stature to rise above pettiness and egomaniacal ambition that now besieges the GOP field.Who is the most knowledgeable candidate?Prior to these recent debates, I sent (via emissaries) this simple message to each Republican contender: "As publisher of the most widely read conservative grassroots publication on the Internet, here is some advice from outside the Beltway. If you want to win the 2012 presidential primary, STOP attacking your Republican opponents and START talking about what you will do as president to restore constitutional integrity, free enterprise, national defense, family values and America's standing around the world. This is a different election cycle from those in past decades, and the old formulas for debates should be discarded. I beg you to abide by Reagan's 11th commandment and stop attacking your opponent's record and focus on your own ... on what you can and will do as president. American Patriots want to learn about you, not about how effectively your campaign handlers can prepare you to attack other Republicans. The political paradigm has changed, and if your media and PR consultants do not comprehend that change, the result might well be the re-election of Barack Hussein Obama."One of the candidates responded accordingly. Though already written off as unelectable by the media, in my opinion he would eviscerate Obama in "mano y mano" debate.I won't mention him by name, because there isn't a GOP contestant whom I consider the "ideal candidate," and I don't want it to be inferred that I believe any of the current candidates fit that bill. (I believe Ronald Reagan was the most outstanding conservative president of the past century, but I certainly don't think he was flawless -- and neither did he.)Those of us who have observed presidential campaigns for decades know that there is no "perfect candidate" in the current lineup, one who will be capable of, in the words of my colleague Cal Thomas, "delivering us from our collective economic, social and foreign policy 'sins' and bring redemption to a nation from the consequences of too many wrong-headed choices." Thomas adds, "Perhaps a Republican president with a 60-vote, veto-proof Senate majority and an expanded House majority might be able to revolutionize government, but only if squishy Republicans in both bodies went along, which seems problematic, especially on big issues."However, if GOP contenders don't stop attacking each other, none of them will even have the chance to correct the course of our nation.Who is the most trustworthy candidate?Fortunately, two of the GOP candidates have clearly upheld Reagan's 11th commandment in each of the debates, and every other contender should heed their example.During the Reagan Presidential Foundation debate, one of the two chastised moderator John Harris for his bald-faced attempt to stir intraparty arguments: "Well, I'm frankly not interested in your effort to get Republicans fighting each other. ... I for one, and I hope all of my friends up here, am going to repudiate every effort of the news media to get Republicans to fight each other to protect Barack Obama who deserves to be defeated. And all of us are committed as a team, whoever the nominee is, we are all for defeating Barack Obama."In the most recent debate, he chastised CNN pretty boy Anderson Cooper: "Maximizing bickering is probably not the road to the White House. And the technique you've used maximizes going back and forth over and over again."Unfortunately, the rest of the candidates seem unwilling to rise above the pettiness.Who is the candidate most capable of defeating Obama?Beyond the bickering, none of the candidates has given more than peripheral attention to the most pressing issue of the current era -- the restoration of constitutional integrity -- though I know a couple of them certainly place that task above all others. Perhaps their handlers have convinced them that the American people are just too dullard to participate in a more substantive national debate about constitutional authority and the First Principles of Liberty. However, in reality most of today's Beltway politicos couldn't begin to articulate the distinction between Rule of Law and rule of men, and the implications for Liberty, and thus are not prepared to integrate that into their campaign template.

That notwithstanding, there is a growing legion of conservatives who are, first and foremost, concerned about the abject violation of the limits that our Constitution places upon the central government. These constitutional conservatives, who were largely responsible for seating a House majority in 2010, are poised to increase that majority, and seat a Senate majority, in 2012.Fact is, almost twice as many Americans self-identify as "conservative" than as "liberal," but apparently that stat hasn't made it across the Potomac, where establishment Republicans still exercise the greatest influence.Perhaps all the GOP candidates will rise above the rancor in the next debate. For the record, I would remind them of the words of the wisest of all men: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand."In the meantime, conservatives must reject the Leftmedia pollaganda promoting the media choice for the GOP ticket.(Visit The Patriot Post's campaign resource page, where we've compiled all the 2012 presidential candidate links as well as debate transcripts and videos.)Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!Libertas aut Mortis!

“By any standard, Mormonism is more ridiculous than any other religion,” asserted the famously nonbelieving comic who skewered the “fairy tales” of several faiths in his documentary “Religulous.” “It’s a religion founded on the idea of polygamy. They call it The Principle. That sounds like The Prime Directive in ‘Star Trek.’ ”

He said he expects the Romney crowd — fighting back after Robert Jeffress, a Texas Baptist pastor supporting Rick Perry, labeled Mormonism a non-Christian “cult” — to once more “gloss over the differences between Christians and Mormons.”

Maher was not easy on the religion he was raised in either. He referred to the Roman Catholic Church as “an international child sex ring.”

But atheists, like Catholics and evangelical Christians, seem especially wary of Mormons, dubbed the “ultimate shape-shifters” by Maher.

In a Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll released on Tuesday, people were asked what single word came to mind for Republican candidates. For Herman Cain it was 9-9-9; for Rick Perry, Texas; and for Mitt Romney, Mormon. In the debate Tuesday night, Romney said it was repugnant that “we should choose people based on their religion.”

In The Times on Sunday, Sheryl Gay Stolberg chronicled Romney’s role as a bishop in Boston often giving imperious pastoral guidance on everything from divorce to abortion.

Stolberg reported that Romney, who would later run for Senate as a supporter of abortion rights against Teddy Kennedy and then flip to oppose those rights in Republican presidential primaries, showed up unannounced at a hospital in his role as bishop. He “sternly” warned a married mother of four, who was considering terminating a pregnancy because of a potentially dangerous blood clot, not to go forward.

Another famous nonbeliever, Christopher Hitchens, wrote in Slate on Monday about “the weird and sinister belief system of the LDS,” the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Aside from Joseph Smith, whom Hitchens calls “a fraud and conjurer well known to the authorities in upstate New York,” the writer also wonders about the Mormon practice of amassing archives of the dead and “praying them in” as a way to “retrospectively ‘baptize’ everybody as a convert.”

Hitchens noted that they “got hold of a list of those put to death by the Nazis’ Final Solution” and “began making these massacred Jews into honorary LDS members as well.” He called it “a crass attempt at mass identity theft from the deceased.”

The Mormons even baptized Anne Frank.

It took Ernest Michel, then chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, three years to get Mormons to agree to stop proxy-baptizing Holocaust victims.

Mormons desisted in 1995 after Michel, as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported, “discovered that his own mother, father, grandmother and best childhood friend, all from Mannheim, Germany, had been posthumously baptized.”

Michel told the news agency that “I was hurt that my parents, who were killed as Jews in Auschwitz, were being listed as members of the Mormon faith.”

Richard Bushman, a Mormon who is a professor emeritus of history at Columbia University, said that after “the Jewish dust-up,” Mormons “backed away” from “going to extravagant lengths to collect the names of every last person who ever lived and baptize them — even George Washington.” Now they will do it for Mormons who bring a relative or ancestor’s name into the temple, he said.

Bushman said that “Mormons believe that Christ is the divine son of God who atoned for our sins, but we don’t believe in the Trinity in the sense that there are three in one. We believe the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are three distinct persons.”

Kent Jackson, the associate dean of religion at Brigham Young University, says that while Mormons are Christians, “Mormonism is not part of the Christian family tree.”

It probably won’t comfort skeptical evangelicals and Catholics to know that Mormons think that while other Christians merely “have a portion of the truth, what God revealed to Joseph Smith is the fullness of the truth,” as Jackson says. “We have no qualms about saying evangelicals, Catholics and Protestants can go to heaven, including Pastor Jeffress. We just believe that the highest blessings of heaven come” to Mormons.

As for those planets that devout Mormon couples might get after death, Jackson says that’s a canard. But Bushman says it’s part of “Mormon lore,” and that it’s based on the belief that if humans can become like God, and God has the whole universe, then maybe Mormons will get to run a bit of that universe.

As for the special garment that Mitt wears, “we wouldn’t say ‘magic underwear,’ ” Bushman explains.

It is meant to denote “moral protection,” a sign that they are “a consecrated people like the priests of ancient Israel.”

And it’s not only a one-piece any more. “There’s a two-piece now,” he said.

Republicans are the ones who have made faith part of the presidential test. Now we’ll see if Mitt can pass it.

Another famous nonbeliever, Christopher Hitchens, wrote in Slate on Monday about “the weird and sinister belief system of the LDS,” the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

I wouldn't unpack the "Mission Accomplished" banner just yet, until we see that Libya doesn't turn into a new AQ base of operations/ bloody civil war amongst the various tribes. Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear menace and acts of war go unanswered.

Still, I'd like to point out that "They told me if I voted for McCain, we'd have even more cowboy swagger and gunboat diplomacy, and they were right"!

On Iran: Perhaps, but Stuxnet was a US decision. I say that because it is possible (and I mean only possible), that Obama's use of intel, spec ops, and the like are being put to task in less obvious ways in Iran. I will confess to not enjoying the "wait and see" on this particular possibility.

On Iran: Perhaps, but Stuxnet was a US decision. I say that because it is possible (and I mean only possible), that Obama's use of intel, spec ops, and the like are being put to task in less obvious ways in Iran. I will confess to not enjoying the "wait and see" on this particular possibility.

On McCain: indeed!

Really? Then why did Buraq say almost nothing when there was a real chance at a "Persian Spring" in 2009 while he instead focused on underming Israel's security at that time?We spent more than a billion dollars on the Libya op. Aside from Ka-daffy's head, we shall see what spins out of it. Somehow I'm not expecting flowers and rainbows.

On Iran: Perhaps, but Stuxnet was a US decision. I say that because it is possible (and I mean only possible), that Obama's use of intel, spec ops, and the like are being put to task in less obvious ways in Iran. I will confess to not enjoying the "wait and see" on this particular possibility.

On McCain: indeed!

Really? Then why did Buraq say almost nothing when there was a real chance at a "Persian Spring" in 2009 while he instead focused on underming Israel's security at that time?We spent more than a billion dollars on the Libya op. Aside from Ka-daffy's head, we shall see what spins out of it. Somehow I'm not expecting flowers and rainbows.

WASHINGTON — Herman Cain, the Republican presidential candidate with the sharp wit and easy-to-remember tax plan, is a cancer survivor, radio host and former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza. On the campaign trail, he talks up his business experience, casting himself as a “problem solver” and Washington outsider.

But the role that helped propel Mr. Cain into politics was that of an ultimate Washington insider: industry lobbyist.

From 1996, when he left the pizza company, until 1999, Mr. Cain ran the National Restaurant Association, a once-sleepy trade group that he transformed into a lobbying powerhouse. He allied himself closely with cigarette makers fighting restaurant smoking bans, spoke out against lowering blood-alcohol limits as a way to prevent drunken driving, fought an increase in the minimum wage and opposed a patients’ bill of rights — all in keeping with the interests of the industry he represented.

It was a role that gave him an intimate view of the way Washington works, putting him in close proximity to Republican leaders at the time, including Newt Gingrich, now one of his presidential rivals, and John A. Boehner, now speaker of the House. And it helped Mr. Cain lay the groundwork for the next chapter in his life, his entry into electoral politics, beginning with a short-lived bid for the White House in 2000.

Those who knew him then could see his ambitions developing. Rob Meyne, an official at the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which contributed handsomely to the restaurant group, wrote in a 1999 e-mail to his colleagues that Mr. Cain’s presidential plans were “not totally unexpected.” In the message, part of an online archive of tobacco industry documents, a wry and somewhat skeptical Mr. Meyne assessed Mr. Cain’s chances.

“Nice to have goals, huh?” Mr. Meyne wrote, speculating that perhaps Mr. Cain wanted to be vice president or had a cabinet post in mind. “In any event,” he went on, “Cain brings some positives. He is a genuine ‘antigovernment mandate’ conservative who happens to be an African-American. He is a wonderful speaker and would be an effective and charismatic candidate. He is also good on our issues.”

Mr. Cain, 65, declined to be interviewed for this article. He does not hide his experience at the restaurant group — it is mentioned on his Web site — but on the campaign trail he emphasizes his earlier stint running Godfather’s, although he has not run a major corporation for more than a decade.

In many ways, his advocacy of a special interest fits with his free-market, anti-Washington themes. Colleagues from the restaurant association remember him as an energetic leader and a fierce foe of any initiative that he saw as a government intrusion into the private sector.

He was at first reluctant to give up his perch as a corporate executive to run a trade group. But Thomas A. Kershaw, a Boston restaurateur and owner of Cheers, the bar that inspired the television show, said the chance to work in the nation’s capital seemed to hold allure.

“I think what was enticing to him was coming to Washington and getting into the middle of the whole political arena,” Mr. Kershaw said. “I think he had his eye on politics.”

Mr. Cain burst into the spotlight in 1994, two years before he joined the trade group full time, while still running Godfather’s. As the association’s unpaid chairman, he sparred with President Bill Clinton during a nationally televised town-hall-style meeting on health care. Mr. Cain insisted that the Clinton plan would cost jobs, asking, “If I’m forced to do this, what will I tell those people whose jobs I’m forced to eliminate?”

Their polite, if pointed, back and forth — Mr. Clinton pushed back with calculations that Mr. Cain declared “incorrect” — made the pizza executive a minor celebrity and sent the White House scrambling to respond.

“That was a very seminal moment for Herman,” said Stephen J. Caldeira, who later ran the association’s communications operation under Mr. Cain. “I think that was when he got the political bug.”

=================

He caught the eye of Jack Kemp, a leading Republican in Washington who shared his free market views, in 1996, when Bob Dole sought the White House with Mr. Kemp as his running mate, Mr. Cain advised them. That same year, after a headhunting firm identified Mr. Cain as a possible successor to the restaurant association’s departing chief executive, he signed on. The Long RunWhen Mr. Cain took the helm of the restaurant association, anti-drunken-driving groups were waging a campaign to lower the legal blood-alcohol limit from 0.10 percent to 0.08 percent — a change that restaurant owners feared would hurt liquor sales. In an opinion article in his local newspaper, The Omaha World-Herald, Mr. Cain called instead for stiffer penalties for drunken driving — an argument that drew a pointed rebuke from Diane Riibe, a board member of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “Mr. Cain and those he represents are in the business of selling alcohol,” Ms. Riibe wrote, “not saving lives.” Anti-tobacco groups were also upset with positions he advocated. Because the cigarette makers had a less than stellar image, they often built lobbying partnerships with other industries. Under Mr. Cain’s leadership, the restaurant association opposed higher taxes on cigarettes and the use of federal money to prosecute cigarette makers for fraud — positions that Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said had little to do with the restaurant business. And Mr. Cain argued vociferously that the decision about whether to go smoke-free was the province of individual restaurant owners, not the government. “The restaurant industry literally became the alter ego of the tobacco industry during that period of time,” Mr. Myers said in an interview. The restaurant association relied heavily on R. J. Reynolds for financial support, records show. Mr. Meyne, the Reynolds senior director of public affairs, served on the restaurant group’s board, and Mr. Cain served on the board of Nabisco, which had earlier merged with Reynolds. In a 1999 memorandum, Mr. Meyne wrote that in previous years his company had given the trade group “as much as nearly $100,000 in cash and much more in in-kind support,” adding, “They have done virtually everything we’ve ever asked, and even appointed us to their board.” Mr. Cain did not entirely become a creature of Washington during his time here. He kept his home in Omaha, where the pizza company was headquartered, and took an apartment in the Northern Virginia suburbs. Weekdays, when he was not traveling, he worked out of the association’s Washington headquarters. Weekends, he flew home to his wife in Omaha. The trade group did not have an especially high profile in Washington when Mr. Cain took over. Each year, Fortune magazine published its “Power 25” list of the most influential interest groups in the capital. The restaurant group had never made the list. But by the time Mr. Cain left, he said in his book, the group was ranked 15th. He bolstered his media relations department, hired more lobbyists and demonstrated a knack for simple titles and catchy names — foreshadowing, perhaps, the “9-9-9” tax plan that is a central feature of his presidential campaign. He branded his media strategy “Mo, Me, Mo,” for motivation, message, momentum. He built a nationwide grass-roots program aimed at getting local restaurant owners to come lobby in Washington, on the theory that every lawmaker’s district has restaurants. He called it “BITE Back,” for “Better Impact the Elected.” He strengthened state affiliates, creating a new political action committee — the Save American Free Enterprise Fund, or SAFE — to help state chapters beat back initiatives they regarded as antibusiness. While Mr. Cain was not a constant presence on Capitol Hill — his lobbyists did the industry’s day-to-day bidding — he did take pains to cultivate relations with Republican leaders. Those friendships seem to have lasted; Mr. Gingrich told CNN last week that Mr. Cain had a good shot at becoming the Republican nominee, while Mr. Cain said last month that he had “the greatest admiration” for Mr. Gingrich and even named him as a possible running mate. “We were not on the radar before him,” said Joseph K. Fassler, a former board chairman of the restaurant association. “I remember one day I was walking in Washington with him, and Colin Powell was driving by. He stopped the car, got out and gave Herman a hug. I remember how impressed I was, seeing that.” Mr. Cain left the trade group in November 1999. When his own presidential aspirations for 2000 faltered, he became co-chairman of Steve Forbes’s unsuccessful campaign. That year, he moved back to his native Georgia to concentrate on his motivational speaking business and writing books. He dabbled in politics again, seeking the Republican nomination for the Senate in 2004 — and losing badly in the primary to Johnny Isakson, who went on to win the general election. Mr. Meyne, who now works for the gambling industry and declined to be interviewed for this article, predicted as much. His 1999 e-mail assessing Mr. Cain’s prospects outlined his political weaknesses (“no natural geographic base from which to run” and no proven fund-raising ability) before offering a prescient conclusion. “Bottom line: Herman Cain is certain, in one form or another, to be a political factor for a number of years to come,” Mr. Meyne wrote. “We have a good relationship with him, and that will certainly be to our benefit.”

By JULIE JARGON Long before his simple "9-9-9" tax plan vaulted him to the top tier in polls in the Republican presidential race, Herman Cain was pitching other catchy ideas, like a two-for-$12.99 pizza deal as chief executive of the Godfather's Pizza chain.

Joseph Barrett on The News Hub looks at Herman Cain's years leading Godfather's Pizza, and how his '2 pizzas for $12.99' plan then compares to his 9-9-9 tax plan in his current GOP presidential campaign..Former co-workers see parallels between Mr. Cain's focus on big ideas then and now. But while some former campaign staffers have criticized the candidate's failure to build a substantial nuts-and-bolts ground operation to match his rhetoric, former colleagues at Godfather's saw a hands-on operational focus that helped him come up with the big ideas.

Godfather's, a midrange chain of mostly sit-down restaurants based in Omaha, Neb., with outlets in more than 40 states, had suffered from rapid expansion and poor locations at the time Mr. Cain took over in 1986. The company also was bleeding money. At a training restaurant near headquarters, Mr. Cain was literally hands-on.

"We'd get our hands full of dough and talk to the crew. He was adamant that we understand how the restaurants operated granularly," said Charlie Henderson, Godfather's former vice president of marketing.

Mr. Cain, who ran Godfather's Pizza for about a decade, has described his experience there as the biggest challenge of his career and former colleagues confirm the chain was in dire straits.

"It was a very broken restaurant chain," said Paul Baird, the former vice president of operations. "If it were not for Herman Cain, Godfather's would have closed."

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Herman Cain, at Godather's Pizza in 1993, was known for a hands-on approach that helped him come up with big-idea marketing campaigns.To compete with larger chains, Mr. Cain pushed for home delivery and created value offers, such as the deal offering two pizzas for $12.99. Early on, he appeared in television commercials boasting that Godfather's pizza had more toppings than its competitors. With a similar marketing flourish years later, when Mr. Cain's advisers suggested the "Optimal Tax" as a name for his tax plan, the candidate instinctively rejected it. "We can't call it that. We're just going to call it what it is: 9-9-9," he said.

Still, some former Cain campaign staffers have said he lacks organizational focus. He went months without a campaign manager after his first one left in early June. He has been touring the country giving interviews about his new book and speeches outside of the standard campaign stops. He hasn't been to Iowa since last August, for instance, and doesn't plan to return until November.

While running Godfather's, Mr. Cain and a group of executives bought the chain from then-owner Pillsbury in a management-led buyout reportedly valued at $40 million. They largely stabilized Godfather's finances while closing unprofitable outlets.

Mr. Cain, 65 years old, grew up in Atlanta and graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in math. He developed fire-control systems for ships and fighter planes for the Department of the Navy while earning a master's degree in computer science from Purdue University. He later worked as a computer-systems analyst for Coca-Cola Co., before joining Pillsbury.

Mr. Cain had turned around Pillsbury's underperforming Burger King restaurants in the Philadelphia region before becoming CEO of Godfather's in 1986.

There, Mr. Cain had a strong No. 2 in Ronald Gartlan, who is equally credited with improving the business. But former employees say the two had different skills.

"Herman is more of an innovator. He was very aggressive at rolling out new products and ideas. Ron would temper him, saying, 'We have to somehow pay for that stuff.' He was the right brain to Herman's left brain," Mr. Henderson recalls.

Efforts to reach Mr. Cain for comment, through his campaign, were unsuccessful. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Gartlan, who is now CEO of Godfather's, declined to comment. The company also declined to comment beyond saying it appreciates Mr. Cain's contribution.

When managers were having trouble building traffic at the chain's Alaska restaurants, the marketing team supplied Mr. Cain with a flood of ideas. He wanted a simple approach.

The result was The Big V, a larger pizza with toppings that were spread out more thinly, giving the impression of more pizza for less money. The "value" offering drastically increased customer visits in Alaska within three or four weeks, Mr. Henderson said.

Former employees said the changes Mr. Cain made company-wide resulted in positive growth in stores open for more than a year, and also positive cash flow within months. However, Godfather's market share remained flat even while the pizza industry was growing, according to restaurant consulting firm Technomic Inc.

Ultimately, Mr. Cain succeeded in stanching the bleeding and stabilizing the business, rather than jump-starting growth.

Closely-held Godfather's doesn't disclose financial data, but Technomic said the chain provided it with a sales figure of $262.8 million in 1986, the year Mr. Cain became chief executive. At that time, there were 656 restaurants. Technomic estimates that revenue was flat, at roughly $270 million, when Mr. Cain left in 1995 to focus on his lead role at the National Restaurant Association, the industry lobbying group. But given that the restaurant count was down to 511 at that time, it represented a stabilization of the business.

Godfather's confirms that Mr. Cain sold all his shares in the company for an undisclosed sum.

Former employees said Mr. Cain frequently reminded his management team that they had to keep their eye on improving store operations. "He'd slap his hand on the table and say, 'Alright, it's time to go back to the strategy. Strategy is like religion. Every now and then you need a dose,' " Mr. Baird said.

As the GOP casts about for a response to Occupy Wall Street, at least one prominent Republican isn't sweating it. In the war over class, Mitt Romney is already waving a white flag. And therein lies one of his chief liabilities as a Republican nominee or president.

The Occupy masses don't have a unified message, though the Democrats embracing them aren't making that mistake. President Obama helpfully explained that the crowds in New York and elsewhere are simply expressing their "frustrations" at unequal American society. The answer to their protests is, conveniently, his own vision for the country. If wealthier Americans and corporations are just asked to pay their "fair share," if "we can go back to that then I think a lot of that anger, that frustration dissipates," said the president.

This is a campaign theme in the making, and one with which Mr. Obama has already had plenty of practice. Congressional Democrats, too, see the value of pivoting off Occupy Wall Street to build an election-year class-warfare argument.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's latest answer to any spending proposal is a "millionaire's surtax," which he intends to make Republicans vote against ad nauseam. Labor unions, liberal activist groups—all see an Occupy opportunity to refocus the blame for a faltering economy away from President Obama and to greedy, rich America.

But here's the other big prize, from the White House's perspective: The man they most expect to become the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, is already running from this debate. Mr. Romney, they see, is in the full throes of Guilty Republican Syndrome.

It's a curious illness, even if its source is clear: success. Mr. Romney is a multimillionaire, and through his own hard work. It's a great American story, yet the Republican is paralyzed at the thought of what his opponents might do with it in a 9% unemployment economy. Democrats have already pounced on his time at Bain Capital, accusing Mr. Romney of "stripping down" companies and "laying off" employees for profit. The press has run exposés on his privileged upbringing, his "oceanfront" vacation home, his use of private jets.

Even his Republican opponents, who should know better, are lobbing anti-wealth pot shots. Herman Cain has taken to comparing his own "Main Street" business experience to Mr. Romney's "Wall Street" past. Rick Perry is running an ad that hits Mr. Romney on his state health-care plan but ends with this bit of class: "Even the richest man can't buy back his past."

Having initially fought these caricatures, Mr. Romney has since begun to exhibit all the syndrome's symptoms. He's put forth a 59-point economic plan that eliminates the capital gains tax—but only for people who earn less than $200,000 a year. He's declared, at a New Hampshire town hall (and at every other opportunity): "I'm not running for the rich people. Rich people can take care of themselves. They're doing just fine." He's developed a form of Tourette's that causes him to employ the term "middle class" in nearly every sentence.

Related Video James Taranto on how Mitt Romney's guilt as a millionaire feeds Democratic class warfare...Mr. Romney is clearly hoping that his own passive form of class warfare will head his opponents off at the blue-collar pass. Really? The 2012 election is shaping up to be a profound choice. Mr. Obama is making no bones about his vision of higher taxes, wealth redistribution, larger government.

Mr. Romney has generally espoused the opposing view—smaller government, fewer regulations, opportunity—but only timidly. This hobbles his ability to go head to head with the president, to make the moral and philosophical case for that America. How can Mr. Romney oppose Mr. Obama's plans to raise taxes on higher incomes, dividends and capital gains when the Republican himself diminishes the role of the "top 1%"? How can he demonstrate a principled understanding of capital and job creation when latching on to Mr. Obama's own trademark $200,000 income cutoff?

At a town hall in Iowa Thursday, Mr. Romney took it further: "For me, one of the key criteria in looking at tax policy is to make sure that we help the people that need the help the most."

These are the sort of statements that cause conservative voters to doubt Mr. Romney's convictions. It also makes them doubt the ability of a President Romney to convince a Congress of the need for fundamental tax reform. If anything he owes a debt to Newt Gingrich, who in a recent debate gave him a taste of how politically and intellectually vulnerable he is on this argument, asking Mr. Romney to justify the $200,000 threshold.

Mr. Romney's non-responsive response included five references to the "middle" class and another admonition that the "rich" are "doing just fine." Mr. Obama can't wait to agree, even as he shames Mr. Romney over his bank account.

Mr. Romney isn't the first Republican to develop Guilty Syndrome, and one option would be to form a support group with, say, George H.W. Bush. A better cure might be the tonic of Ronald Reagan, who never let his own wealth get in the way of a good lower-tax argument. Reagan's message, delivered with cheerfulness and conviction, was that he wanted everyone in American to have the opportunity to be as successful as he had been. If Mr. Romney is looking for a way to connect with an aspiring American electorate, that's a start.

Whether it is rich guilt or economic ignorance, Romney's inability to justify the $200,000 threshold is reminiscent of George Bush not knowing why he wanted lower tax rates. Just what we need is another President who can't grasp or articulate incentive-based production.

Murphy's Law must have chosen Rick Perry, only after he proved himself a blockhead and his candidacy was declared room temperature, to finally get a tax reform right (IMHO) with just the first two nines of a flat tax package, 20-20 or whatever it will be called. I am very excited to find out if he will credit the forum for inspiring his plan: http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2112.msg55494#msg55494

My advice to Herman Cain is to take ownership of both plans. Cain should say to Perry: "Nice job. I was first with a bold plan for tax reform and economic growth and my rates are lower, but I like the way you are thinking. If congress passes a flat tax with out without a new consumption tax that accomplishes all our goals, even if it is called the Perry Plan, as your President I will happily sign it, scrap this tax code and then get moving with regulatory reform and our smaller government, larger freedom agenda".

My advice to candidate Romney is to have his marketing people take one more look at his 59 point non-specific addition that keeps the current tax code intact. Gov. Romney, you are running for leader of the free world. Is this really your final answer?

Steven Moore of the WSJ is first to report today that the Perry plan announcing tomorrow will be an optional 20% flat tax rate exempting the first 12,500 per person. No one knew until now what this rate would be - although I did call it the 20-20 plan yesterday. -------http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204644504576651150539439350.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTSecond POLITICAL DIARY OCTOBER 24, 2011, 12:18 P.M. ETPerry's Optional Flat Tax We are finally starting to get the details about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's flat tax plan to be unveiled formally on Tuesday. Perry insiders confirm that the flat tax will have a rate of 20%, and tax filers will be able to choose between the flat tax and the current code.

This means that workers won't "be forced into the flat tax if they like the current system," a Perry advisor tells me. It would also include a standard deduction of $12,500 for each person in the household. -------We will see shortly what the Mitt Romney Version 3.0 reaction will be to it. Romney 1.0 called it "a tax cut for fat cats". In August he said “I love a flat tax” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/us/politics/mitt-romney-changes-his-tone-on-flat-tax-plans.html) He will need his own new plan of his own unless his marketing people think they can do something more catchy with the 59 point non-specific plan with no named new rate on top of the current 59,000 page tax code.

These candidates think they are running against each other. This isn't a job fair and it isn't about them. We are hiring a leader of the free world and choosing our direction. Each candidate including Cain should either endorse this, or come out with a better plan, or better yet - do both. The idea isn't to divide the right; it is to win over the people to the wisdom of the policies and save the nation.

By making it optional which I think Newt offered first, they completely remove that argument used heavily (and unfairly) against Cain that x% of the working poor will actually be worse off. You don't lose your favorite deduction if the old code is still sitting there available with all its forms.-------Current tax code requires a half trillion dollars in compliance before the first dollar of revenue is captured, Here is an actual excerpt from Schedule D that could also go on a Tylenol bottle: "These distributions are paid by a mutual fund (or other regulated investment company) or real estate investment trust from its net realized long-term capital gains. Distributions of net realized short-term capital gains are not treated as capital gains. Instead, they are included on Form 1099-DIV as ordinary dividends. Enter on line 13 the total capital gain distributions paid to you during the year, regardless of how long you held your investment. This amount is shown in box 2a of Form 1099-DIV. If there is an amount in box 2b, include that amount on line 11 of the Unrecaptured Section 1250 Gain Worksheet on page D-9 if you complete line 19 of Schedule D. If there is an amount in box 2c, see Exclusion of Gain on Qualified Small Business (QSB) Stock on page D-4. If there is an amount in box 2d, include that amount on line 4 of the 28% Rate Gain Worksheet on page D-8 if you complete line 18 of Schedule D. If you received capital gain distributions as a nominee (that is, they were paid to you but actually belong to someone else), report on line 13 only the amount that belongs to you. Attach a statement showing the full amount you received and the amount you received as a nominee. See the Instructions for Schedule B for filing requirements for Forms 1099-DIV and 1096.

My Tax and Spending Reform PlanIndividuals will have the option of paying a 20% flat-rate income tax and I'll cap spending at 18% of GDP.

By RICK PERRY

The folks in Washington might not like to hear it, but the plain truth is the U.S. government spends too much. Taxes are too high, too complex, and too riddled with special interest loopholes. And our expensive entitlement system is unsustainable in the long run.

Without significant change quickly, our nation will go the way of some in Europe: mired in debt and unable to pay our bills. President Obama and many in Washington seem unable or unwilling to tackle these issues, either out of fear of alienating the left or because they want Americans to be dependent on big government.

On Tuesday I will announce my "Cut, Balance and Grow" plan to scrap the current tax code, lower and simplify tax rates, cut spending and balance the federal budget, reform entitlements, and grow jobs and economic opportunity.

The plan starts with giving Americans a choice between a new, flat tax rate of 20% or their current income tax rate. The new flat tax preserves mortgage interest, charitable and state and local tax exemptions for families earning less than $500,000 annually, and it increases the standard deduction to $12,500 for individuals and dependents.

This simple 20% flat tax will allow Americans to file their taxes on a postcard, saving up to $483 billion in compliance costs. By eliminating the dozens of carve-outs that make the current code so incomprehensible, we will renew incentives for entrepreneurial risk-taking and investment that creates jobs, inspires Americans to work hard and forms the foundation of a strong economy. My plan also abolishes the death tax once and for all, providing needed certainty to American family farms and small businesses.

My plan restores American competitiveness in the global marketplace and provides strong incentives for U.S.-based employers to build new factories and create thousands of jobs here at home.

First, we will lower the corporate tax rate to 20%—dropping it from the second highest in the developed world to a rate on par with our global competitors. Second, we will encourage the swift repatriation of some of the $1.4 trillion estimated to be parked overseas by temporarily lowering the rate to 5.25%. And third, we will transition to a "territorial tax system"—as seen in Hong Kong and France, for example—that only taxes in-country income.

The mind-boggling complexity of the current tax code helps large corporations with lawyers and accountants devise the best tax-avoidance strategies money can buy. That is why Cut, Balance and Grow also phases out corporate loopholes and special-interest tax breaks to provide a level playing field for employers of all sizes.

To help older Americans, we will eliminate the tax on Social Security benefits, boosting the incomes of 17 million current beneficiaries who see their benefits taxed if they continue to work and earn income in addition to Social Security earnings.

We will eliminate the tax on qualified dividends and long-term capital gains to free up the billions of dollars Americans are sitting on to avoid taxes on the gain.

All of these tax cuts will be meaningless if we do not control federal spending. Last year the government spent $1.3 trillion more than it collected, and total federal debt now approaches $15 trillion. By the end of 2011, the Office of Management and Budget expects the gross amount of federal debt to exceed the size of America's entire economy for the first time in over 65 years.

Under my plan, we will establish a clear goal of balancing the budget by 2020. It will be an extremely difficult task exacerbated by the current economic crisis and our need for significant tax cuts to spur growth. But that growth is what will get us to balance, if we are willing to make the hard decisions of cutting.

We should start moving toward fiscal responsibility by capping federal spending at 18% of our gross domestic product, banning earmarks and future bailouts, and passing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. My plan freezes federal civilian hiring and salaries until the budget is balanced. And to fix the regulatory excess of the Obama administration and its predecessors, my plan puts an immediate moratorium on pending federal regulations and provides a full audit of all regulations passed since 2008 to determine their need, impact and effect on job creation.

ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank and Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley must be quickly repealed and, if necessary, replaced by market-oriented, common-sense measures.

America must also once and for all face up to entitlement reform. To preserve benefits for current and near-term Social Security beneficiaries, my plan permanently stops politicians from raiding the program's trust fund. Congressional IOUs are no substitute for workers' Social Security payments. We should use the federal Highway Trust Fund as a model for protecting the integrity of a pay-as-you-go system.

Cut, Balance and Grow also gives younger workers the option to own their Social Security contributions through personal retirement accounts that Washington politicians can never raid. Because young workers will own their contributions, they will be free to seek a market rate of return if they choose, and to leave their retirement savings to their dependents when they die.

Fixing America's tax, spending and entitlement cultures will not be easy. But the status quo of byzantine taxes, loose spending and the perpetual delay of entitlement reform is a recipe for disaster.

Cut, Balance and Grow strikes a major blow against the Washington-knows-best mindset. It takes money from spendthrift bureaucrats and returns it to families. It puts fewer job-killing regulations on employers and more restrictions on politicians. It gives more freedom to Americans to control their own destiny. And just as importantly, the Cut, Balance and Grow plan paves the way for the job creation, balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility we need to get America working again.

Mr. Perry, a Republican, is the governor of Texas and a candidate for president.